Planning Decisions: Local Involvement

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Of all the problems that my constituents bring to me on a regular basis, it is planning and development that, time and again, possesses some of the greatest difficulties. The Government’s plans to take power from communities and hand them to developers will be nothing short of a disaster for our green spaces. Already, local people have too little control over which developments are built near to them. Communities such as Keresley in my constituency risk being subsumed into the city suburbs by plans that they did not approve and are now fearful of losing much of their unique village identity. Even when comparatively few homes are under construction, those scrutinising plans often lack the powers needed to ensure that new additions are in character with existing homes, with strict enforcement made virtually impossible by loopholes created by Whitehall.

In addition, local councils such as Coventry City Council are being forced to build tens of thousands more homes than residents require and, if they refuse, not only would yet more homes be foisted upon them, but those developments would be unleashed to sprawl outwards with zero control for those most affected locally.

Worse still, new developments often include little decent social housing and too often lack the local public services required to support new homes. Put simply, our planning laws are already widely unbalanced, and it is time that we put local people before the big developers’ profit margins.

As the Government craft their latest changes to planning policies, Ministers must at last take the time to engage with those affected by development—those who feel powerless in the face of mass building projects. When local voices are ignored, the result is the wrong houses built in the wrong places. Instead of lucrative estates constructed by Conservative party donors, Britain needs planning and development rules that listen and respond to local people and local needs. Handing power back to communities and their representatives in local government can unlock a brighter future for how we meet our housing needs. No community can be expected to support a development that it was powerless to shape.

Once, those on the Conservative Benches spoke of a property-owning democracy, yet now they seek to strip away the last few democratic safeguards in our planning system. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of families are left renting poor quality houses for sky-high rents, while others are forced to move away from the only community that they have ever known thanks to development designed to serve only property investors.

The Government are putting the profits of a greedy few ahead of the concerns of thousands whose communities are faced with bulldozers, so I call on Members from all parties to stand up to be counted against the Government’s proposals as they seek to permanently rob communities of the powers to shape their neighbourhoods and their own futures.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

The wind-ups will begin promptly at 7.10, and apologies to the probably 17 Members who will fail to be called.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind) [V]]

When it comes to planning, everyone except wealthy landlords gets a raw deal from this Government. Since 2010, the Conservatives have slashed funding for new homes, refused to regulate for higher standards, and given a free hand to commercial property developers. The number of Government-funded homes for social rent has fallen by more than 90%, the number of households stuck renting from a private landlord has risen by more than 1 million, and the number of young people who own a home has fallen by almost 900,000. According to Shelter, even before the pandemic half of all renters were only one pay cheque away from losing their homes, with no savings to fall back on. Since then, the Resolution Foundation has found that renters are 40% more likely to work in places that have been shut down by the coronavirus crisis.

The Conservatives plan to reward their developer donors by selling out communities with a new developers’ charter, which will remove powers from elected local representatives, thus silencing residents and tipping the balance of power further in favour of profit-seeking developers. The Government plan to scrap section 106 agreements and the community infrastructure levy, yet section 106 agreements between developers and local authorities result in almost 50% of all affordable homes for social rent. By scrapping section 106 and the community infrastructure levy altogether, the Government risk abandoning one of the chief engines of affordable living. The president of the Royal Institute of British Architects said that this could

“lead to the creation of the next generation of slum housing.”

Rather than making it harder to build homes that are fit for the many, the Government must rapidly increase the construction of council housing and genuinely affordable properties to urgently address the housing crisis. The soaring inequality and exclusion derive from the way land is owned and controlled. The Government make ideological choices to sustain this inequality as a direct attack on the working class.

In my constituency of Leicester East, overcrowding is a huge problem. There are pockets of areas close to Leicester General Hospital with populations of 2,000 living in an area 60,000 square metres in size. That is an average of 32 square metres of space, which is the equivalent of a single box bedroom, without front or back gardens. The UK average is 3,676 square metres of space per person, which is more than a hundred times the amount of space that working-class communities have in my constituency, yet the Government want to downgrade our much-needed and loved local NHS general hospital and sell off its land to property developers.

It is sadly not surprising that this Government act so overwhelmingly in the interests of landowners and landlords when we remember that many of them are in fact landlords themselves, catering for their property developer donors. The Government’s proposal is not about partnership with communities but about a land grab. Housing is a fundamental right, without which it is impossible to build a secure and happy life. The Government must recognise that fact and begin to work in the interests of all UK—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Sorry, Claudia. I call James Daly, who is to finish his speech at 10 past seven.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con) [V]]

This is a really important debate about the role that local communities play in the planning process. As we have heard from Members from all parties, communities have their own priorities. In Bury, we have a thriving local debate about where we feel housing should be put and the type of housing we need in our area. Organisations such as Bury Folk Keep It Green are at the forefront of the debate. Thousands of my constituents in Bury hold the view that their priority is to protect the green belt, and there is a clear local view that people want their democratically elected politicians to protect it.

Let us look at the Government’s position. The recent response to the Government’s consultation on changes to the current planning system makes it crystal clear that

“meeting housing need is never a reason to cause unacceptable harm to such”

things as the green belt or countryside. Indeed, in that consultation response the Government go on to say:

“We can plan for well designed, beautiful homes, with access to the right infrastructure in the places where people need and want to live while also protecting the environment and green spaces communities most value.”

Why are we not in that situation in Bury? Why are the Greater Manchester spatial framework and other such documents being railroaded through, destroying the green belt in Walshaw and Tottington and at Elton reservoir? The reason is that my local Labour council will not put a local plan in place. How can planning exist in any way, shape or form when our local Labour council do not have a local plan? It is simply beyond belief that, since 1997, we in Bury have not had a local vision of how our communities should look. I implore Bury Labour: please, put a local plan in place that protects our green belt, rather than subcontracting the responsibility—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Sorry, James, but it is 10 past 7 and we have to start the wind-ups. At least you got in.